


The Coward and The Merciful

by VeteranKlaus



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel True Forms, Battle, Hurt/Comfort, The Great War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-07-29 02:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20074528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: During the Great War between Heaven and Hell, the first examples of cowardice and mercy is created by an angel and demon who refuse to fight.





	The Coward and The Merciful

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a piece of art work by turquoisemagpie on Tumblr; credit to the idea goes for them. I’ll try to tag but I’m horribly bad with AO3 and only have mobile at the moment, but the artwork is beautiful and I suggest you check it out!

Many things originated from humans. Fascinating little creatures that created endless fascinating little quirks; little behaviour, little display. Humans invented plenty of things that would exist forever. They displayed the first signs of things. They created progress and diversity and variety. They displayed first, before any other being, many things. Things like lust, things like grief, thing like family and greed and wealth and craftsmanship and pride and ignorance. Funny little things, so complex and with such depth, ever growing and expanding, creating things that would be engrained into humanity for its entire existence.

One could try and follow back their creations to their origin. One could track the invention of the wheel back to 3500 BC. They could track the compass back to 206 BC, and the waterwheel to 50 BC. Everything from the wheel to concentre to the first refrigerator. They could even track back the first ideas of royalty, a hierarchy to society, how classes divided; almost everything had an origin from humans that humans could track down and keep note of. 

There were things, however, that humans did not create. Very human things, yes, but yet not created by humans. 

Battle, for instance. 

War. 

Those very human things were indeed not created by humans, but rather the divine and the occult, long before humans existed, before angels and demons targeted Earth at all. 

War existed long before humans. Wars took place not in trenches or with guns first, but with Grace and Hellfire that clashed together in battlefields that spanned miles and miles across space, in between stars and far from planets. 

Both sides would split open and beings would flood out in a wave of celestial intent and bloody rage, blinding wings and holy lances, red eyes and gnashing fangs. God’s Warrior would lead forth their army, their dozens of wings creating gusts strong enough to move stars, and the one that stood with many eyes and creating a skull-drilling buzzing would let their beasts run past them like a solid rock parting a rushing river, and the two sides would collide in a powerful explosion across the cosmos. 

Both sides fought with the pure intention to win; to utterly obliterate the other side with no mercy. Only one could be the victor. The two sides were life-long enemies and, while one day there might become forbidden truces, and the line between Right and Wrong, Heaven and Hell, Angel and Demon may become blurred, the two sides would stand firmly opposite one another, and ne’er would they see eye to eye. 

A creature with weeping skin and smoking claws leapt towards an angel. They hissed and they raged and they thrust out their talons, scratching and damned and dooming, and they took great talon-fulls of glowing, pristine feathers that wilted beneath their touch, and the angel burst forth with burning Grace, pure and divine and Holy, and in the blink of all the angel’s two-hundred-and-seventeen eyes, the demon before it was no more than dust in space. And the angel moved on to smite the next one that dared to show itself to them, who had once dared to oppose Her will.

Angels were a vicious lot in a different way to demons. Demons were vicious in the way that they rotted and they reeked of sulfur, in the way that they raged (for demons had created Rage) and the way that their skin wept and melted or hardened into scales or into torn feathers and black fur, how they grew horns and their eyes flashed red and they enjoyed pain and revelled in misery. 

Angels, too, were vicious in a way different to that of demons. They presented themselves as the embodiment of safety and security, of the epitome of what is Right. Nothing and no one could be more Right and more safe than angel. Nothing and no one deserved trust like an angel; whole heartedly, body, mind and soul. Their will was law, was the only way to exist. Whether their will be the death of thousands of people, simply because it was to be so, and they were unwavering and not to be questioned, for to question them was to question Her and that was damnable, and they fought with a skill and they fought terrifyingly; burning bright, with wings here and there thrusting forth like knives, and eyes that found every enemy and that you could not hide from, and the Grace in their veins could eradicate whom they deemed unworthy of existing. 

They fought, now, without question and without mercy, for mercy had yet to be created. They fought in wave after wave, rushing forth to their hellish enemies, smiting and burning and eradicating foul beasts with scales and torn wings and fangs, with hooves and tails and claws that sprouted Hellfire. 

The demons fought too. They tore and bit and clawed and gouged and tricked and ambushed and revelled in it, nor did they bat an eye when a fellow demon needed help. Help was not what a demon offered. 

An angel not quite at the front of the fight stood, hesitant. Possibly the first displays of hesitance. They did not enjoy battle, but it was Her will, and Hell and demons simply could not be allowed to win and continue their reign of terror. Not when fragile things called Humans were to be created; vulnerable, open to influence of either side. This battle could not be lost. 

He stood, wings glowing gold, feathers perfect, divinity and Grace rippling through them, and his eyes were bottomless pits of ice, of pure light, and they flitted this way and that, watching angels rush forth to the battle, listening to the roar of fire as they collided with demons. 

This angel, whom was named Aziraphale and was determined not to let this battle be lost for he was already given an important job on Earth to come, had been given a flaming sword. It burned holy and hot, perfect and sharp, and wholly capable of smiting demons within but a handful of seconds. It sat heavy in his hands, the hilt moulded to fit his grip perfectly, weighted just so to swing in his hand with ease; a weapon created just for him; a weapon of war. It had yet to be used. 

He was nearing the front now, close enough he could see demons, see their hideousness, their horrific beings. One with matted hair and fur down its back, ribs shown through rotting muscle and flesh, reared up on its legs, akin to a mule but covered in scales, and its maw opened to reveal rows of mismatched, sharp teeth that clamped onto a wing, and its claws leapt forth to tear an angel apart. 

Aziraphale did not like demons. 

But there; from the corner of his eyes, he spotted one. A great snake that almost blended in with the cosmos around them; scales glittering black, its underbelly red like blood and gold like its eyes. 

This demon had dispersed from its ranks; slithered it’s way through the thick of the battle and it gave the battle a wide berth. None had noticed it but Aziraphale. 

This demon could lead an ambush from behind. This demon could break apart their ranks and spread them out or lead them to a sly trap. And only Aziraphale was seeing it, watching it go.

His hand gripped his sword tighter, and with his heart in his throat, the angel flew. He could draw attention to them, at least, and they may even be able to take the thing hostage; if he had been tasked with staying safe from battle and harm to lead about a successful trap, it must be a valuable demon.

This was not the case. The demon had not left the battle to go about and set off a trap, or to trick the angels, or to do anything of the like. Not at all.

This demon, in the form of a giant snake that melted right into the cosmos, a mix of space and Hell, was called Crawley. Once upon a time, he had been called something else; something holy, something celestial. But those times were long gone, and whom he had been before Crawley was not necessary knowledge. 

The first display of cowardice could not be tracked down to this demon, but this was when cowardice was created. Fleeing from battle because he had no thirst for blood; for his own or for an angels. He had no desire to fight, no desire to shed blood. He quite rather feared what would happen if he did. If he would become like the hooved beast that tore into an Angel’s wing like a feast, or if he would feel the power of Heaven pulse through him, pure and Holy and divine, and for it to burn apart his damned soul and to smite him from existence. He feared death at his hands and he feared his own death. So he ran. And he almost succeeded. 

The angel whom had spotted him was following him, eyes steeled in determination. For Heaven, for Her, for humanity and safety and because this was Right, the angel was obliged by all means to kill the demon. And kill he would. Faster than the demon could think, the angel was there in a beat of six wings, and his hand not holding his weapon grabbed the snake’s long, scaled body, and thrust it down below him. His wings covered them, as if shielding the possibility of help from another demon (for the angel was not yet aware of the fact that demons did not help one another) or from seeing freedom so close, or from setting off its sly trap before its death. 

The snake curled its body around his arm, but from where his hand grabbed him it could not move its head, not lunge out and snap at him with venomous fangs. It could only hiss and curl itself around his wrist, tighter and tighter. 

She had said this battle would be so, and so it must be. And Her side must be the victor, and no demon must be left to chance another fight. Including this one. This one, that wriggled and flicked its tail, that had eyes wide with fear of the angel bearing down on it, and seemed more intent on getting away than on fighting back.

The sword weighed heavy in the angel’s hand. 

It is said that all demons were once angels. If not all, then most. 

The snake’s forked tongue flicked past its lips and it looked to and fro and tried to pry apart Aziraphale’s fingers. 

It is Her will. Demons do not deserve to live. 

Aziraphale slid his hand down, just a little. Enough so that the snake could turn its head. If it wished so, the snake could reach out and bury its fangs into him.

It did not. The sword that had hovered but a few inches from its face suddenly fell down to Aziraphale’s side.

The demon was scared. The demon did not want to die. The demon did not want to kill Aziraphale. It had ran and it had hidden and it had a mind and thoughts unlike a blood thirsty beast, and Aziraphale could have - and should have, for it was Her will - snuffed out its life. 

Angels were formidable foes. Terrifying if they wanted to be. They left no enemies alive to spread the story of their merciless triumph in battle. They did not lower their weapons or consider the demon in their grasp. They did not hesitate and they did not give mercy. 

The first trace of Mercy could not be tracked down to Aziraphale during this battle, but it was created then. Brought forth into life as his fingers loosened around the scaled body of the demon and he turned away his sword. 

Crawley, with but only his tail still caught in the palm of his hand, swayed with confusion. For he should be very dead by now. But this angel hung his head, as if ashamed that he would end another’s life so brutally, and all of his eyes seemed to turn down. He was vulnerable. Crawley could take this chance and avoid what would come to him in Hell for creating Cowardice. 

Far from the battle, the demon coiled itself around the angel loosely, head riding tall above the angel. One of the angel’s hands splayed out across his back and the other clutched his sword with just enough of a grip so that it wasn’t lost to the space round them. It was an offering; an understanding between the two of them. An apology, also, for what they should do and what they had done and what they feared to do, what the others did to each other. A silent agreement between Right and Wrong, a questioning of what that really meant, and a promise that neither meant harm, for they understood one another in that very moment in a way that none would ever come to understand someone such. 

This was also the first display of a truce between Heaven and Hell, Angel and Demon, and it would not be the last between this particular two creatures. Not at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Again; credit goes to the artist turquoisemagpie in Tumblr! If I figure out how to tag their art, I shall do so, but I’m horrible with technology and really don’t know how to. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
